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Emboar @ Life Orb
Ability: Reckless
Adamant Nature
252 Atk/ 252 HP/ 6 whatever
-Take Down
-Head Smash
-Flare Blitz
-Wild Charge
As simple a set as you can get. Emboar reaches 379 attack with 252 EV's and an Adamant nature, and with the boost on every one of these moves by the ability Reckless, plus a Life Orb boost... that's a lot. Maxed out HP so it can take as many recoil hits as possible, and the remaining 6 EV's are useless. Do whatever with them.
Anyhow, moveset explanation. Flare Blitz is Emboar's most powerful Physical STAB move, Wild Charge gets good coverage, Head Smash purely because it's a 150 Base Power physical recoil attack, and Take Down just because. And I'm pretty sure nothing resists the combo of Fire/Electric/Rock/Normal.
...actually, I'm just pretty sure that nothing resists the combo of Fire/Electric/Rock.

I love how in the time it took me to write that, Superior Snivy makes an almost identical set.

70% of the Serebii population uses ultra powerful legendaries (also known as ubers) in their teams. If you are one of the 30% that thinks outside the box and doesn't use ubers, copy and paste this into your signature! (Started by SapphireL)

Emboar does have base 100 spatk which isn't horrible so it's at least worth a special set.I have also noticed that this set is very similar to infernape but slower and has more hp.flamethrower and focus blast for STAB grass knot to catch some decent Pokemon for coverage and hidden power for even more coverage.

Well, Emboar is very slow, it's bulky HP can sort of make up for it's horrible defenses. In my opinion, Infernape is better. It is faster, which seems to be the only thing that matters. It also has Iron Fist which makes Fire Punch and Thunderpunch good moves.

Physical Emboar@Life Orb/Expert Belt/Muscle Band
Adamant
252 Att, 252 HP, 4 SpD
Reckless
-Stone Edge/Head Smash
-Wild Charge/Earthquake
-Flare Blitz
-Superpower/Hammer Arm
Emboar's speed is pitiful in the first place, so Hammer Arm is a good option for a move. Most of this set revolves around Reckless. Earthquake is if you want extra coverage, but most teams nowadays have at least 3 Pokémon that know EQ, so it isn't required, and besides, Wild Charge covers Water and Flying Pokés, whereas EQ doesn't.

Emboar Set + Counters + Move Options

The Reckless Powerhouse (Not available for use until Dream World version is available)
Life Orb, Adamant, Blaze/Reckless, 252 Atk / 252 HP / 4 Def
-Flare Blitz
-Head Smash
-Wild Charge
-Bulk Up

Emboar's speed is pretty hard to work around, but it makes for a great Bulk Up Sweeper. Flare Blitz is your main attack, though the recoil becomes ridiculous with Reckless and Life Orb, it's power will shut down even the toughest physical walls out there, especially the steel ones. Head Smash offers huge power and takes down other Fire types. Wild Charge guns down bulky water types.

Countering this set

- Swampert, Gastrodon, Seismitoad, and Quagasire resist Flare Blitz and Wild Charge and have super effective STAB attacks.
- Heatran has Flash Fire and takes neutral damage from the other two attacks.
- Omastar can switch into Flare Blitz and take it out with STAB Surf/Hydro Pump provided Emboar has one Curse on, Breakable Armor activates or Omastar has a Choice Scarf.
- Hydreigon with Surf or Earth Power.

Alternative Moves

- Heat Stamp and Heavy Bomber use Emboars high weight for power, but this isn't effective against other heavy pokemon. In lower tiers where lightweight pokemon are all over the place, these moves can see use.

- Superpower offers high power and STAB, but has the Attack and Defense reduction side effect. If you have Curses active or received Curse Passes from pokemon like Umbreon, this can be fine. But in most cases, this is best in choice sets.

- Stone Edge is an alternative to Head Smash if you dislike the recoil effect. Rock Slide has less power, but more PP and accuracy. The flinch effect is negligible unless you are running a Curse set on a Trick Room team.

- Earthquake, is earthquake. Wrecks Rock and Fire types. Can easily be substituted for Bulk Up and a Life Orb can be substituted for a Choice Band to make a solid Choice Set.

- Will-o-Wisp has its uses, but Emboar isn't too bulky and is on the slow side, so it isn't a viable user of this move. In a Trick Room team, this may see use.

- Grass Knot deals with the Water/Ground types that plague Emboar, and Scald is an alternative option for Fire Types. Emboar's Special attack is entirely viable.

- Overheat is nice on a mixed set, since Emboar has pretty solid Special attack, but I'd advise using Flare Blitz in most circumstances. The 23 base stat gap plus Reckless down the line is huge.

It has access to some of the strongest recoil moves, will get reckless sometime in the future and its bulk is made of HP, with is positive for taking more recoil, instead of defense with would do nothing to the recoils at all

Force a switch and use flame charge to raise its speed ~375, putting it above jolly infernape's max speed of 348. After that, the moves are up to you. Overheat will catch physical walls off guard, but flare blitz has reliable power. EQ/ super power/ and brick break because constantly doing flame charge on the switch is heatran bait and you can KO it instead of powering it up; choose your favorite. Stone edge v. rock slide. Head smash if you're using reckless. Or wild charge for water types.

Flame charge boosts speed. Fire attack of your choice. Focus blast for heatran and second STAB. Last move for dealing with other fires and ground types, waters and ground types, or hidden power's usual. I put HP grass because we don't know who's going to wind up in which tier. It looks like vaporeon's a fantastic wall this gen and grass knot's not doing much to that. Who knows where manaphy and phione will end up?

As the third straight Fire/Fighting starter, Emboar has stiff competition from Blaziken and Infernape. It actually has superior attacking stats to Infernape and is around even with Blaziken, as well as being considerably more bulky than the former. However, Emboar's big let-down is its poor speed. Base 65 is poor, and with its two rivals having speed on their side - Infernape's natural pace, coupled with Blaziken's new ability, Speed Boost - it would appear that Emboar struggles to find a niche. This is in addition to Emboar lacking a good fighting STAB move: it does not have Blaziken's greatly improved Hi Jump Kick, or Infernape's Close Combat. It has to settle for the mediocre-by-comparison Hammer Arm instead.

However, the aforementioned bulk can allow Emboar to differentiate itself from its Fire/Fighting predecessors. Fire is not a great type to be for a defensive Pokemon but this is offset by its secondary typing which at least gives it neutrality to Stealth Rock - though it still suffers from bad weaknesses to Water and Ground.

Emboar's Dream World ability, Reckless, can help him considerably. However, this gives Emboar a problem, since it makes a Life Orb very difficult to use. With its slow bulk, it will not enjoy the recoil Life Orb provides on top of the recoil provided by moves such as Flare Blitz and Head Smash.

This makes Emboar a prime contender for a Choice Band set, if one was to take Reckless into consideration:

Three recoil moves looks suicidal, but that base 123 attack coupled with Reckless brings Flare Blitz to 216 base power after STAB, Head Smash to 180 base power, and Wild Charge to 108 base power.

The moves should be obvious, looking at Emboar's movepool. You have Flare Blitz providing an excellent Fire STAB move to hit most stuff that doesn't resist it very, very hard. It breaks down steel-types not named Heatran like they're not even there and is a generally good move: just watch that recoil.

Same story for Head Smash. The recoil here is actually worse, but that ability to hit, for example, incoming Dragons like Salamence, Dragonite and Hydreigon for neutral or super-effective damage is a very useful tool if you know their switch in. It's also a good choice against Zapdos, who will love to come in on Wild Charge. Mostly Head Smash is there for its raw power. The accuracy and recoil, though...both a bit of a pain. A superb weapon in the Emboar arsenal is Wild Charge, a recoil-inducing Electric type move. It is a great weapon for bulky waters not named Swampert, Quagsire or Gastrodon. It also OHKOs Gyarados, even after Intimidate.

Hammer Arm rounds out the set. It's a useful STAB move, and the speed drop isn't such a big deal since there are no speed EVs and the pig is slow. It hits stuff like Heatran hard, who otherwise enjoys coming into a Flash Fire boost and threatening with Earth Power. Hammer Arm doesn't do THAT much more to Blissey, Chansey or Porygon2 than Flare Blitz, but the lack of recoil is very helpful.

If those walls are not a problem for you, Boiling Water is an interesting option if you can work it in somewhere, maybe instead of Head Smash or Hammer Arm. It hits incoming Heatran and Hippowdon, and, most notably, Gliscor very hard and the high possible burn chance can really cripple the latter. In fact, that chance makes it a useful move to throw around early in the battle, if you wish to forego Flare Blitz in the early stages. If you want to run it, though, switch to a Brave nature so as not to compromise Emboar's offensive stats or its defenses.

One set where Emboar really misses something like Hi Jump Kick. But it's still not bad, running a little bit like DD Tar without the boost.

Come in on something Emboar can scare out and use Nitro Charge for a small amount of damage, which also boosts you speed. Believe it or not, you don't actually need to go Jolly here. You can outspeed stuff like Adamant Weavile and other base 120s if you do, but you're already outspeeding base 110s like Starmie and Gengar even with Adamant, after a Nitro Charge. If you want the extra speed, by all means go for it, but because of the way Emboar's speed falls, it's not actually a necessity.

The rest of the moves have been explained already. Flare Blitz, Head Smash and Wild Charge are powerful moves boosted by Reckless that hit a lot of stuff hard. The item choice is more interesting. Expert Belt is useful for hitting bulky waters while allowing Emboar to not lose yet more of its HP, but if you want to take a gamble with it, by all means use Life Orb: though note that this makes you vulnerable to even resisted priority moves such as Bullet Punch in the long run.

Counters

Gastrodon and Quagsire are probably the premier counters. They only fear the exceptionally rare Hidden Power Grass, they resist Head Smash and Flare Blitz, only take neutral damage from whatever fighting-type move Emboar is running, and to top it all off, both have immunities to both Wild Charge (Emboar's biggest weapon against Bulky Waters), and Boiling Water, thus negating the burn chance. They can hit back with either STAB move.

However, these have little utility and Swampert is usually a better option in your team. The Gen III starter is still a very good counter, it just lacks the Boiling Water immunity. Moving down the list, fellow bulky waters like Suicune and Vaporeon don't mind coming in on Flare Blitz either, but they will be taking super effective damage from Wild Charge.

Gliscor and Hippowdon can generally stall out any set lacking Boiling Water or KO it with a STAB Earthquake. Any Emboar set lacking a fighting move will hold no fear for Porygon2 either.

Partners

Ninetales is useful for bringing out the sun. It can also get rid of sand, which compromises Emboar's bulk, and rain, which cripples Emboar's devastating Flare Blitz. Emboar will also appreciate Wish support from something like Blissey or Vaporeon, especially the Choice Band set. And of course, it will like something that can remove its counters. A Grass-type that hits on the special side can help take out stuff like Suicune, Gliscor and Hippowdon. Take a look at Sceptile and Serperior for that, though they may still struggle with Porygon2.

Scald is a very interesting and useful move. On top of reliable power, it's a water-type move that causes burns. Putting that on Emboar will leave the opponent with a big surprise, take down the Ground-types, and the burns will really screw with opponents. Flare Blitz is just high power, and combining that with STAB and Reckless makes it even more powerful. Stone Edge is powerful, has a high crit-ratio, with 80 accuracy. Head Smash is even more powerful, gets an increase from Reckless, has 80 accuracy, and recoil. Make your pick by preference. Similarly, Flamethrower has reliable power, STAB, and full accuracy, while Fire Blast has more powerful, STAB, and 85 accuracy. Again, make your pick.

Leftovers is for giving Emboar additional survivability, especially with its physical moves both potentially being recoil moves.

Reckless Pig!: @Leftovers
Nature: Adamant/Jolly/Lonely/Hasty
Ability: Reckless
-Flare Blitz
-Head Smash/Brick Break
-Wild Charge
-Substitute/Scald
This is one Reckless Pig! Flare Blitz, Head Smash, and Wild Charge all benefit with Reckless. Flare Blitz being your STAB and Head Smash and Wild Charge for coverage. You can replace Head Smash with Break for Fire-Fighting STAB and if you are afraid of Head Smash's massive recoil. You can run Substitute for recovering with Leftovers after all the recoil. Or you can run Scald for more coverage.

Reckless powers up three of its moves, one of which kills Waters, and one kills Flying Types. Flare Blitz and Hammer Arm for STAB, or Gyro Ball to use its low speed. You can use Flame Charge or Level Ground to get even with the opponent. Works well, because my friend uses it against me and kills 2-3 Pokemon that can't hit it with a super-effective STAB attack.

Meh, the second starter in row. Boring. This is all I'm going to do.

Last edited by pikamanepicfail45; 27th February 2011 at 10:46 PM.

if you are like me,and think Typhlosion is too epic to be in UU, copy this in your sig-started by epicpip.

I use this place for my sprites from now on, because they have front, back, male, female, normal, and shiny sprites.
Credit to The Spriters Resource for all of my images from here forward.

credits go to here.
Note-My name is Michael, not Micheal. 99% of people cannot spell my name correctly.
Snivy used STONED EDGE!!

The point of the set is to gain extra strong attacks with recoil moves by using Reckless combined with Head Smash and Flare Bilitz, then use Rest/Subsitiute to mantain health while dealing massive damage, Trick Room can also be used to give yourself an edge by attacking first do to the low speed.

The Chesto Berry might not hold it's worth, use Muscle Band for powerful attacks, use Leftovers for survivability

With 100 base special attack, a special set is possible with Emboar. the Fire move is obvious. Grass Knot is useful for hitting heavy rock and ground types. Scald may put a burn on the opponent, and allows it to hit some of its fire brethren. The fighting move is physical so it can take down bulky special walls like Blissey.

Suicide Emboar

Basically a suicide set due to recoil. Flare Blitz and Superpower are it's main STAB moves, one getting Reckless boost, and the other getting an undesirable Attack and Defense drop. Head Smash is another nice choice for dealing with mainly Flying types only, since Fire and Fighting cover most types anyway. Also gets a scary Reckless boost. Wild Charge is for water types and Gyarados which isn't affected much by Flare Blitz/Superpower.

Other Options:
Ankle Sweep, Earthquake, Body Slam, Curse, Yawn, Roar

Ankle Sweep can lower the opponent's speed since Emboar's biggest flaw is his speed. A couple Ankle Sweeps and you could cause some switches/finish it.

Earthquake can deal with Rocks, Steels, Electrics, Poisons, and Fires. Since Fire/Fighting already covers Rock/Steel and gets neutral hits on the others. It's worth a mention, but it's STABs would do a lot anyway.

Body Slam can paralyze the opponent which could let you move faster than your foe.

Curse can raise your Attack and Defense, and won't matter about Speed since it's speed is already that low. But since Emboar can't take a hit anyway, it won't have much use.

Yawn and Roar go for some pseudo-hazing options. Yawn is obvious, they either switch or fall asleep. Roar just switches it out right away.